What is missing in today’s marketplace is just that- A Practical Guide To Cross-Gender Friendships. We find ourselves, our friends, and our pop-culture icons in these relationships all the time. In fact, I bet you’re in one right now. But we in our 2010 culture still don’t know exactly where to put cross-gender friendships in our mental map. We find ourselves fidgeting when we try to classify them-

Friends… with benefits.

Friends… but I would date her if she was into it.

Friends… because she knows lots of hot women.

Friends… because my boyfriend/husband just doesn’t talk to me the same way he does.

Friends… until she breaks up with her boyfriend.

Friends… but down the line, who knows!

We’ve got this one broad term to describe a whole mess of things that just doesn’t have a category in our mental map of relationships.

Here’s what I’d like you to do right now. Decide that you’re not playing this game anymore. Decide that once and for all you are going to live your life to the fullest by having straightforward relationships in your life that you can pour yourself into without the fear of being rejected for WHO YOU ARE.

You rock. The people in your life should agree.

Read the Free eBook on the subject and leave a comment below letting us know how we did.

He wishes he could be you… Not in a role model kind of way… more like a rummage around in your trash, steal your personal information and steal your identity sort of way.

He liked your girlfriend first… and he’s quite bitter about it.

He has a long-term plan regarding your girlfriend… and spoiler alert… you’re not included.

He gives her advice. Think critically for a moment… do you think he’s on your side?

He has watched more romantic comedies than you, and he really truly believes that the girl ends up with the best friend. He really wants this to be real life.

He may never tell your girlfriend how he really feels… or he may just suppress it until you’re out of the picture(or worse… on the rocks. Go back and look at #4… you think this guy has your back?)

He is basically Jason Bateman from this movie. –

Learn more about who this guy is, and more importantly, how to address this kind of issue in your relationship at http://www.dudeships.net. There you’ll find our free ebook. It’s worth every penny. : )

Does your girlfriend have a guyfriend? What are your thoughts on this guy?

We serve a niche- Men and women around the world deluded into thinking that men and women can have a functioning friendship. Here is the problem with each gender.

Men: You think that by being “friends” with a girl long enough, she will someday wake up and realize that the best thing(you, of course) for her has been in front of her nose the whole time. Or you watch some romantic comedy where the girl ends up with the “best friend” and then try and jump your bones.

Women: You think that by siphoning off men into the “friendzone” that the feelings he has for you will just gradually disappear.

Unfortunately, both genders are wrong, and the issue is a lot more complicated(well… we simplify it). We understand because we’ve been on both sides. We wrote our book so that we can demystify and well… help both genders so that they can-

Men: Stop wasting your time on a woman who doesn’t see you for what you are- awesome(and totally worthy of a woman who wants to fulfill you in every way… not just one who likes to spill her emotional baggage onto you every now and again.)

Women: No more “I really think we’re better as just friends” or “I don’t like you in that way” conversations. These are awkward… and from what we’ve heard, they lead to a lot of emotional hurt on your behalf because you had this man in your life who was parading around like your “friend” when in fact he truly has romantic feelings for you. Also, no more jealous boyfriend. That’s right! By letting him know that you are aware of the dynamics that we talk about in our book, you will literally be eliminating his cause for jealousy. This will make your relationship roughly 4 gazillion times healthier. Don’t try the math… we didn’t.

So check out the free ebook at www.dudeships.net and finally figure this all out. Happy reading. And don’t forget to leave comments about things you’ve learned, stories, or hey, even if you disagree. We’d love to hear from you.

Have you ever graded someone based on their looks on a scale of 1 through 10? Don’t lie. I know you have. I have too. Ever find yourself saying “She’s/He’s about a 6, but with a good personality she/he could probably be about a 7 or maybe even a low 8!” Well first of all… this doesn’t make much sense since you were only basing your “grade” off their looks. HOWEVER, this does illustrate an interesting point- A point that we like to call “The Scales”.

The Scales are a more accurate way of describing your thoughts on a man or woman that you are “grading”. We use the Physical Attractiveness Scale, which is simply based on looks(the traditional 1-10 scale we all know and love.), and the Emotional Connection Scale, which is a 1-10 scale based off of the intangible qualities of your relationship to that person. The Combination Scale takes into account both of these scales, and gives us a more accurate representation of how you view the person. For example, a person can be a 5 on the PA Scale, but a 9 on the EC Scale, and thus land somewhere in the 7-8 range on the Combo Scale.

Is this scientific? Nope. Is it useful, practical, and help us to clarify the blurry picture that is male-female relationships? YES. (Put it this way… when was the last time you actually used E = MC^2? Ok… Now when was the last time you and your friends rated someone else on a scale of 1 to 10. …Moving on.) Here’s the scales in-depth straight from page 18 of our Dudeships Book on www.dudeships.net (Check it out and let us know what you think below!)

3 Scales:

Physical Attractiveness Scale: How attractive you find someone based purely on physical looks.

We use a 0-10 scale. 0 is a man’s attraction to another man. 9 would be the person considers the other person very physically attractive. 10 is the most attractive person you can ever imagine- there might be a 10 out there, but like Big Foot remains to be proved unequivocally.

Emotional Connection Scale: How emotionally invested/attached to the other person.

We use a 0-10 scale. 0 means you have no contact with the other person. 10 would be wanting to hang out all the time, love talking, investing in the other persons’ life, wrapping up your happiness with the other persons’ well-being. The idea here is that this scale climbs slowly from 0 upwards as you get to know the person better and better.

Combination Scale: How you view the other person physically taking into consideration the emotional connection you have towards them.

As your emotional connection to someone climbs, your willingness to look past your initial ideas of how the person looks grows and grows. Also, as you get older, looks start to matter less and less as our values and goals in life change. The idea here is that this scale more accurately represents your inclination to be attracted to someone, and that it can fluctuate over time.

So what does all this mean in terms of the question “Can men and women be friends?”. Well… since the Emotional Connection between two people is in a constant state of flux, it means that the Combination Scale can also fluctuate over time. This means that a “friend” of yours of the opposite gender could steadily climb on the Combo Scale and someday seem, very very attractive to you. Think about it. Have you ever seen a friend fall for a friend, even after they’ve spent years being strictly(seemingly) platonic? What are your thoughts on all this? Comment Below!

Duh. I mean, of course they can. We see it everywhere- TV shows, movies, books. The question of whether or not men and women can be just friends has been debated aplenty, and everyone seems to have their own answer. From the classic “When Harry Met Sally” to the distressed men and women in the coffee shops complaining about their significant others’ platonic cross-gendered friends, the question seems to have gone unanswered. In our new book entited “The Dudeship”. We outline an alternative to what the conventional wisdom has offered thus far in the decades long, usually somewhat heated debate.

Our thesis is simple. Men and women can be “friends”. However, we feel that this is a special kind of friendship that looks and acts EXTREMELY differently than a friendship between two men, or a friendship between two women. The reasons for this are in our book, which can be found at www.dudeships.net. But heres a little mini lesson straight from the book itself-

A Dudeship is simply any relationship between a man and a woman that isn’t someone you’ve just met, work with, or see because of other external factors such as work, school, book club, etc. There are many types of Dudeships:

Lustship – friendship in which the man or woman just wants to get into the other person’s pants.

Hopeship – friendship in which the man or woman is secretly hoping for something more.

Waitship – friendship in which the man or woman is single and is determined to “wait out” the other person’s boyfriend/girlfriend and then pounce when they breakup.

Eventualship – friendship that seems purely platonic right now but which, if continued, stands a good chance of a strong physical/emotion connection developing that leads to feelings sometime in the future.

Denialship-A friendship between two people who vehemently deny that anything could ever happen between them.

Formerships– A friendship between two people who used to date.

Egoship– A friendship between a man and a woman where one party is aware that the other person has a crush on him/her and keeps them around merely as an ego boost.

Have you ever seen or witnessed this sort of thing in your life, or seen one of your friends go through it? If so, feel free to leave a comment.

My guess is that there is a reason you are reading this right now. Maybe you have a girlfriend and she has 6 trillion guyfriends that claim to be platonic… you want to believe her, but something is nagging at you and you can’t put words to it. Maybe you have a boyfriend who has lots of “friends” who are girls, but even though they are just “friends”, you still feel jealousy. Guess what. These are normal feelings not to be suppressed, talked down, or buried. These are serious issues that need a serious talking out. Welcome to that conversation.

We are a small group of individuals with one purpose: To educate the enlightened few who choose to stop walking in darkness about what’s really going on with the whole idea of men and women being “friends”.

So if you are done walking in darkness, proceed to www.dudeships.net/ to find a detailed analysis(for free) of why men and women CANT be friends. Why free you ask? Because we, like you, have been on the quest for answers, and we rather just give them to you instead of making you pay for them.